Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter movement is often misunderstood.

Dear Future President,

Congratulations on winning the race and I hope you’re enjoying your stay at the White House. I am fifteen years old and I live in the uptown area of New Orleans, Louisiana. I am a ninth grader at Lusher Charter School. I can't vote in this upcoming election but I will be voting in the next one. I, along with many others, would like to see improvements in race equality. A mainstream movement bringing attention to this issue in our society is Black Lives Matter. I stand with this movement and all that it represents, but others that do not stand with this movement may simply not understand its purpose.

One effect of Black Lives Matter is that many people, blacks and whites, assume that the movement, BLM, represents that black lives are the ONLY lives that matter, when really it means that black lives matter TOO. The movement that is based from this theory is All Lives Matter. According to Jesse Damiani “.....all lives do matter. But the problem with this premise lies in what goes unaddressed in your line of thinking.” Which is exactly the point that we all try to get across. When people of all colors start getting treated unfairly because of their appearance then we can come together and hold up signs saying “All Lives Matter.”

The majority of people, of all races, are hypocrites and don't even notice. Black Lives Matter is movement not only saying that “.... the police are a bunch of bigots who shoot black men indiscriminately….”, as said by Breitbart, we’re also talking to the black men who shoot up each other, then “blame it on the system”, also a belief of Breitbart. One theory is that, black on black crime is caused by the lack of jobs available for African Americans. According to Chicago Tribune, “If young black men went to work every day, they wouldn't be out in the streets killing each other.” The high rate of unemployment for blacks leads to killing, robbing or whatever it takes to feed their families. This is only one of many theories , but all them leads back to covert racism, racism that is hidden and not noticeable until you sit back and think.

Minority lives have always not been treated with as much care as whites since the Atlantic Slave Trade but this major movement, BLM, came together after the killing of “Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri.” according to The New York Times. Although the officer doesn’t say it directly, he apparently assumed that because of the color of the young man’s skin and his age, he was reaching for a gun. Since then, the African American community, with exception of a few, has developed so much hatred towards law enforcement. On the one year anniversary of the killing of the eighteen year old, Michael Brown, there were fires, violence, and looting all over the city of Ferguson, Missouri. Many blacks have come together to rebuild this relationship by having days out with the community and police officers with lots of food and entertainment, and special days honoring law enforcement by wearing blue.

In conclusion, you may receive many letters in your time at the White House and may never read mine yourself. More importantly, racism, the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races, is a real problem in our country and will never go away but can be controlled.

#2nextprez

Letters to the Next President 2.0 engaged and connected young people, aged 13-18, as they researched, wrote, and made media to voice their opinions on issues that mattered to them in the 2016 Presidential Election.

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